


One year later

by mittamoo



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Introspection kinda, feelings are messy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-13
Updated: 2017-05-13
Packaged: 2018-10-31 10:01:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10897002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mittamoo/pseuds/mittamoo
Summary: one year later Aaron and Liv think about grief





	One year later

**Author's Note:**

> I have exams in two days why have I written this

Aaron doesn’t miss him. Not really, but in this weird, twisted roundabout way he does. In his head he’d separated the man into two separate people his dad and Gordon. Even during the trial he didn’t reconcile the two people in his head. Honestly he doesn’t think he ever will. He’d never tell anyone that though because what would that make him, a man that missed his abuser. Only he doesn’t miss him, not Gordon. He misses his dad, the man from before everything went south with mum. The one who picked him up off of the ground and cleaned his scraped knee.

It’s not exactly a good thing to feel. He almost certainly shouldn’t feel the way that he does but feelings don’t let a little thing like sense get in the way of making his head a slimy mess of the feeling of Gordon’s phantom hands interspaced with the memories of his dad kissing his forehead and chasing away the monsters in the dark before he splintered into two and joined them in the shadows.

The fact that everyone around him has come to the conclusion that with his death the fight is over. The resentment crawls unbidden through his veins and poisons his blood, makes him yearn to split his skin and let the hurt bleed out because it is over. Aaron never got the closure that he needed and maybe the letter wouldn’t have led to that but he’s already had his choices snatched away from him too many times and Robert had no right to do it once more. Maybe he’s a bad person, but he hates Robert more than a little bit for burning that letter away. Then just as he rationalised the actions in his head, that he could go to the prison and ask what had been written, the man was gone. Gordon was dead and had taken his dad with him. He grieved for the man he had loved in silence and expressed relief for the death of the monster that plagued his life a little more openly, though not by much. He had Liv to think about after all.

Out of all the people that he knows, Liv he thinks is probably the one who’d come the closest to understanding him. She probably has a harder time than him even because all she had were the good memories of her dad. He won’t talk to her about the mess that is his head nor the still raw throb of grief that he has no right to. His baby sister absolutely did not need or want to hear him cry about their father. He doesn’t deserve to either, not when he’d essentially murdered their dad. Aaron is not a religious man _but god, how does she even stand him._

He’s only ever tried to air these feelings once, to his counsellor. She was all gentle words and reassurances that he could say whatever he felt about him, that she wouldn’t judge him for it. The words got stuck in his throat though because how was he supposed to explain to her. That the man who made his life a living nightmare wasn’t the same man who took him and Liv to the fair and bought them both candyfloss, at least they weren’t in his head. Because there is no way for him to say what his thought process is without sounding like a complete basket case. His rapist was his dad but his dad wasn’t his rapist.

So he doesn’t say anything at all about it, just tugs his sleeves over his hands and asks to talk about something else. He knows that he needs to work through this, to piece the splintered image of two men in one body together. Needs to accept that the parent and paedophile were one and the same. To keep letting himself think of them as other is mental and he needs to stop.

Sometimes he wishes that Gordon had been telling the truth when he blamed someone else because even though he’d still be a right mental case at least he’d be able to _hate._ Most of the time he does hate, when all he can see and feel and think is Gordon he hates, hates, hates. Would piss on the man’s grave if he could. But when his mind isn’t shutting down or blaring shrill alarm bells at him. _Danger-naughty-bad-not safe._ The feelings get more muddled, the hate is still there, of course it is. There’s guilt too because it’s all his fault really isn’t it? Because Aaron’s the one who drove his mother away from them. He’s the one who made his dad hate him so much, it’s his fault for being so bad and forcing Gordon into it.

It’s been a year to the day since he died and Aaron’s spent the whole day with numb fingertips and a lump in his throat the size of a stone and he doesn’t think there is anything he or anyone else could do or say to make it stop. So he does what he’s always had to do, he carries on. Well, he carries on as best that he can. Most of today had been spent staring at walls and wondering aimlessly around the house but Liv is going to be home from swimming or whatever it is that she actually does with her friends and she’s going to want feeding.

So he’s trying to achieve something even a little bit useful today but so far all he’s actually achieved is boiling a pot of water for pasta. He’s standing over it when Liv walks in and slams to door behind him. Liv didn’t make him jump and she definitely did not send a spark of irrational fear up to force his heart into his mouth. Even so his body jerks away from the sound and his hand presses against the outside of the pot. The pain makes the lump in his throat lessen slightly though, gives a clarity to his thoughts that he hasn’t had in almost a week. It scares him how much he misses it. But this wasn’t on purpose so he tries to push away the shame that’s adding to his mind whilst he tries to remember what it is you’re actually supposed to do with burns.

*****

Liv doesn’t miss him. Not really. If anything she misses the abstract concept of her dad she built in her head. She misses the idea of a dad rather than the man himself. Sometimes she compares them in her head, like two separate people. Gordon and her dad. Only her dad was never real, not as she thought of him, her real father more akin to the horrors found on the YouTube crime videos she used to watch when she was bored. She doesn’t watch them anymore. She doesn’t want to accept that the man in her head wasn’t ever real, he wouldn’t ever come and just be her dad. So she keeps them separate in her head, the hope and the truth. It’s not something she wants to talk about, not even with anyone and particularly not with Aaron.

She doesn’t like the fact that she feels like this. Even in her head the notion is too close to betrayal for her to not feel guilty about it. For that exact reason she will never talk about this again, the funeral is over now and she’d already forced Aaron into doing that. She needed to go though. Craved the hope of closure that a funeral is meant to bring. Because her brother is right, the man’s death was not a loss but yet somehow it still feels like one. With Gordon’s death came the death of a childish dream that she’d clung to in spite of everything.

After Gabby’s dad had died Gabby had wanted to speak to her about it, how she was meant to cope with her dad dying. It isn’t the same situation because Gabby’s dad was good, he was a vicar who deserved the grief his passing had commanded, and he wasn’t like Gordon. On top of that there was nothing that Gabby could have done or said to save her dad. Not like Liv. Liv could have saved her dad, he didn’t deserve saving and it would have been in exchange for her brother but she still could of done it. She didn’t save him. Liv stood by and did nothing. So now a monster was dead but he was still her dad, still represented the make-believe man in her head. She hadn’t known him or what he had done but she had loved him none the less. After all, how evil does she have to be to miss a man that still has her brother scared over a decade later?

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading, feedback is always appreciated. Fun fact I had actually started to write a talk between them for this but I don't know If I'm going to upload that or not lol


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